UF01.
Aquaponic Rooftop Farm, Basel, Switzerland.

Large, flat, and homogeneous industrial rooftops constitute one of the most extensive yet underused spatial reserves within contemporary cities. Detached from everyday use and largely invisible, these surfaces remain outside the urban imagination despite their scale and structural capacity.

UF01 intervenes on this condition by relocating food production from the ground to the rooftop. The project introduces an aquaponic farming system conceived not as an accessory or technical installation, but as an architectural and spatial organization capable of operating at an urban scale.

The intervention is structured through a clear act of displacement. Elements typically associated with ground-based production and logistics — prefabricated greenhouses and industrial containers — are lifted onto the rooftop and recomposed as a coherent architectural system. This shift separates food production from its conventional territorial setting and repositions it within the industrial fabric of the city.
Aquaponics defines the internal logic of the project. The reciprocal relationship between fish, plants, water circulation, and spatial arrangement organizes both the technical operation and the architectural layout. Production is not hidden behind the building or relegated to infrastructure, but becomes the structuring principle of the spatial configuration.

The system is based on a modular and generic architectural approach. A greenhouse accommodates the aquaponic cycle, while container units host complementary functions such as storage, technical infrastructure, and administration. These elements can be arranged in multiple configurations according to site-specific conditions, allowing the project to adapt to different rooftops without losing its internal coherence.

By assembling productive, industrial, and architectural components on the rooftop, UF01 opens a concrete horizon in which unused urban surfaces enter into operation. The project does not propose a model to be replicated, but establishes a spatial condition in which new relationships between city, production, and architecture become thinkable — and buildable.

Displace — the project operates through a physical and typological shift, relocating agricultural and industrial components from the ground to the rooftop and separating food production from its conventional territorial setting.

Mediate — architecture redefines its role by making future modes of urban production imaginable and technically operable, holding together spatial vision and material realization.

Activate — unused industrial rooftops are brought into operation through the assembly of greenhouses, containers, and infrastructural systems into a coherent architectural condition